I remember that in September 2012 I was sensing in my Christchurch friends an unfamiliar psychology. The earthquakes were abating, but in a handful of visits to the city where I was born and in the discussions on this site, I apprehended a new normal that was dank and weird, a place no one had been before, where no one knew how to be.

That was the month it was announced that NZ On Air was funding a six-part (now three-part) drama centred on the Christchurch earthquakes, to be directed and co-written by Gaylene Preston and screened by Tv3. I flew down to Christchurch to interview Gaylene for Media3, only for our commissioner to declare, for reasons never made clear, that we would not be allowed to do that story.

We had a cameraman booked, so I figured I'd do the interview anyway, but a miscommunication left me sitting for an hour at Beat Street cafe while Gaylene was a kilometre away at Pomeroy's, thinking the whole thing was off. When I finally reached her, she generously invited me along to her friends' place for dinner. After we'd eaten, she talked to the rest of us about the project she'd taken on, Hope and Wire.

Although the work was yet to be done, I could see that Gaylene was already under pressure to justify herself, not least thanks to a rambling column by Vicki Anderson of The Press, in which Anderson prosecuted her standing grudge with NZ On Air and quoted "one prominent New Zealand filmmaker" (When A City Falls director Gerard Smyth, I'm fairly sure) declaring the funding decision to be "crazy". [Edit: I am now satisfied that if anyone said "crazy", it was not Gerard Smyth. My apologies to Gerard.]

Gaylene reeled off many of the characters, places and relationships we saw on screen in last night's first, two hour-episode of Hope and Wire. She knew them well; she'd brought them to Christchurch with a broader story she wanted to tell and perhaps had wanted to tell for a while. I wondered whether she'd be able to capture the city's strange experience without growing her stories from the rubble.

Hope and Wire got a bit of a clobbering on social media last night, and much of that was from people in Christchurch who felt that she had not captured their experiences. In truth, it wasn't going to be possible to do that, nor, probably, to speak to people who'd lived the trauma as well as to the rest of the country. It was, as Gaylene said from the beginning, "a postcard to Auckland". I found myself thinking it would be a good way to show people outside New Zealand what had happened.

Hope and Wire certainly has real strengths. Rachel House is simply tremendous as Joycie: she carries the drama and embodies the terrible mix of anxiety and fatigue that people in Christchurch know. The rendering of the earthquakes themselves and the blending of real-life footage with acted drama are a technical triumph.

But I always felt that Joel Tobeck was struggling to to find a third dimension in his wicked landlord Greggo and even Steven Lovatt couldn't bring his crooked lawyer to life . And while some people were outraged by the assault by King, the skinhead leader, on his girlfriend Monee, I thought it was the most believable thing King did in the whole two hours. I'm not sure cartoon skinheads had much to bring to the story.

We are also seeing the pressures of publicly-funded drama in New Zealand, with beancounters asking "does it need all the earthquakes?" and, I suspect, a demand for storylines and characters that would engage a mainstream audience and tick demographic boxes. A project that was avowedly not in the South Pacific Pictures house style still seems to have washed up with a bit of soap about it. The dark, subtle post-traumatic drama that beckoned may not have been possible in the first place. It wasn't going to be our Treme.

Hope and Wire's blend of documentary and drama, with characters breaking out and speaking first-person to the camera, is a bold stylistic move, but it often seemed awkward last night. Perhaps Bernard Hill's Len should have been the only one granted such a meta-narrative.

What we've wound up with is patchy and sometimes outright clunky. But it's what there is and I hope we can find some measure in our responses to it.

187 responses to this post

I guess the challenge when you're writing about any event that has affected so many people so profoundly is trying to distill those myriad experiences into a small group of characters without resorting to stereotypes.

The actors particularly seemed to realise the importance of the project and I was impressed by all of them.

I’ve been trying to write something about this (and on balance, think I’m going to hold off until next week, and see where it goes) but I stand by what I said on Twitter:

The problem with 1st night of #HopeAndWire is that it’s a docudrama that isn’t much of a documentary, and only fitfully works as drama.

And, God, I know the “straight to camera” monologue is a device Preston has used before, and well, but more often than not it felt like I was not only being talked AT but DOWN to. Was I supposed to want to slap Comrade Theoden and Uptight Merivale Mum as often as I did? "Show don't tell" is a very sound principle, and one writers as experienced as Dave Armstrong & Preston shouldn't have to be reminded off. Especially when you've got a cast who can carry it when they're given the chance.

I expected Hope and Wire to be a tough watch, but the reason I turned it off after 45 minutes wasn't any of the things I'd expected. I quit out because it was bad. Charicatures, cliches, terrible stilted dialogue. The precise moment I switched off was the use of the phrase "mega munted". Wrong, just so wrong.

I'm hearing now that when they got on to the February quake it got better, but also that people have really struggled with seeing themselves in the stock footage, which I think really highlights to inevitable problems with co-option when you bring in someone from the outside to tell our stories. And if people from Chch are saying, as some were last night, "this is not our experience", then what story is being told?

I'm not blaming Preston for any of that, and I'm aware of the battles she had to fight to get the city as much involved as it was, but I still don't think it was enough. It felt, to me, like a postcard to Auckland from Auckland.

I could have put up with the odd little jarring things - like the woman from Bexley having a go at the assessor for being from "out West" after the September quake when that split in the city didn't happen until February - if the writing and the characterisation had been better.

I didn't watch it as I'm still raw from our family’s ongoing battle with insurance and EQC, although I will eventually get around to it. I'm not sure if future episodes will touch on these issues but the ongoing trauma caused by rubbish government bureaucracy, an arrogant and practically useless minister with too much power and the appalling behaviour of venal insurance companies and EQC is a story that needs to be told no matter how unpalatable it is to the rest of NZ. It is nothing short of a national disgrace.It’s become a bit of a cliché but many people here in Christchurch will tell you that the trauma of the shaking was easier to deal with than the ongoing Kafkaesque nightmare of trying to get their lives back on track in the face of this wilful intransigence. There are also many positive stories to be told about the post-quake recovery in Christchurch but many feel alienated from this narrative because of their ongoing and completely avoidable personal battles with the powers that be.

Charicatures, cliches, terrible stilted dialogue. The precise moment I switched off was the use of the phrase “mega munted”. Wrong, just so wrong.

Thanks, Emma. I've tried to be really sensitive about being aware I'm watching this in a very different place from people in Christchurch for whom this is about their lived (and ongoing) experience. And, yeah, I always knew no matter who was involved Hope and Wire was inevitably going to be like tap-dancing across an emotional minefield while blindfolded and juggling a half-dozen chainsaws. It was never going to make everyone happy -- hell, there's a lot of people for whom, understandably, it would be unwatchable -- but too often it felt really "stagey" in the worse sense.

I also think Russell puts his finger on something here:

We are also seeing the pressures of publicly-funded drama in New Zealand, with beancounters asking “does it need all the earthquakes?” and, I suspect, a demand for storylines and characters that would engage a mainstream audience and tick demographic boxes.

Perhaps a little more trust in the emotional and artistic intelligence of that "mainstream audience" would be a good thing?

Perhaps a little more trust in the emotional and artistic intelligence of that "mainstream audience" would be a good thing?

Yeah, but it's not just that: I wonder if there's a demographic obligation that's even stronger here than usual -- you must show young people, old people, poor people, rich people, white people, brown people.

Didn’t watch it: wrong time for me. I caved this morning and watched the clip on the Press website. That’s enough.

The incessant PR campaign Gaylene Preston has waged over the last few weeks in which she claims tenuous links to Christchurch is beyond insulting. The empathy shown in that piece of film is zero.

Splicing the clips of people on the street just after the Feb 22 quake with a Christchurch caricature piece of acting is disgusting.

In that clip I see Greg’s office, I see his colleague (a trained rescue worker) – who ran straight out of the office and on to the collapsed building – digging people and bodies out with his bare hands. Several people died at that corner, in that rubble. Greg was injured across the road.

I see the old lady in black, who I watched on youtube months later when I was able to face it, staggering down High Street. What happened to her? Did she have family or friends to go home to? Did she have a home to go to? Was she one of the elderly who died month later, death brought on early by the trauma?

I see the terror and shock in the teenage boy’s face as the ground heaves again. That series of 5.8 and 5.9 shocks in the first 30 minutes after the first one were terrifying. I wonder if he was at school when it happened? At the school my boys go to now? Which is in its second temporary home since the quakes (on the other side of town, in Gerry’s Ilam, where the residents object to us parking for five minutes in the street to pick up our kids – who otherwise spend 80 minutes on a bus trip that should take 35 minutes).

The use of these images, unless express consent from the people has been obtained, is foul. It may be legal, but it’s inhumane.

Avoiding the series’ publicity has been impossible: it’s been stressful not watching it.

When I saw my son’s face go white during the TV ad this week, I realised that this series not going to help us.

I hope he doesn’t start screaming (not yelling – screaming) in the night. Asleep. Running around the house asleep, screaming. That happened for a year after the quakes stopped.

So maybe you can understand when I say to the cultural opportunists: these are our lives, our stories, our town. Go away.

That mild statement doesn't convey the fury I feel. The layers upon layers of havoc that the quakes have wreaked in my family's lives are blistering and many-faceted. It's not only about buildings: health, jobs, finances, education, daily life, friends, loss of family, loss of future.

Yeah, but it’s not just that: I wonder if there’s a demographic obligation that’s even stronger here than usual – you must show young people, old people, poor people, rich people, white people, brown people.

Which I would find entirely worthy, because, you know, diversity is just awesome. (And no, folks, I'm not being even a little bit sarcastic.) But you've got to take the next step beyond ticking off the demographic boxes and making them dramatically interesting characters. Sorry to pick on Joel Tobeck, but Greggo might as well have had I AM THE KING OF DOUCHEBAGISTAN tattooed on his forehead; and the rich white folks seem to have wandered in from Shortland Street (uptight prissy snob Mum, professionally and personally skeevy lawyer and slutty bitch teenager, and big bro you just know was doomed the fifth time his sister called him a retard).

Swimming against the stream here, but on balance I thought the first two hours were pretty good. Yes, some of the character cliches were painful (racist skinheads/ego-centric fendalton lawyer/genial old-school socialist etc.) Some of the dialogue didn’t work, occasionally the drama seemed bit over-cooked, and the acting wasn’t uniformly natural.But by the end there was room for most of the characters to grow. I didn’t expect it, but I liked the to-camera bits. Sometimes I just felt they were better acted. As a technique, it worked (for me) to convey feelings/thought that way. The blending of actual footage with the drama was scarily effective (apart from one scene). The story arcs are well-launched- still plenty of time to go silly or wrong, but so far, despite some wobbles, I thought it worked ok.ETA: I do understand this is hard for many. I was able to watch with a little distance, as a rare Christchurch-based kiwi drama (how many of those have there been?) and from a personal point of view that's both bloody lucky, and more-than-a-little interested in television-making.

I meant it's even more indirect - writers writing for an audience they aren't part of about a situation they weren't part of. Not that it's impossible with a decent imagination and a wise understanding of people beyond stereotypes.

We'll see how that goes, I guess. The first half-hour, I felt almost all the characters were verging on caricature. But most, by the end, had more depth. Still not enough if the development isn't well-conceived and the story arcs have everyone reverting to stereotype ...

Len is Murray Horton, isn’t he? I’ve met Monee many times, sometimes a she is a homeless man in a crumpled suit liberated from a now demolished Hotel. And it was good to see the strength of the elderly displayed which was so very true. It misses the overwhelming compassion and genuine love simply everyone had for their fellow man for the best part of a year. The cardboard cutout skinhead is too contrived, but still holds a truth in that only the dozen or so total scum still in the city took such liberties, rather than liberating beer it should have been those emergency generators. Christchurch’s crime rate in the wake of the quakes was pretty close to zero.I was witness to a high court case being concluded at a bus stop next to a rubbish bin, about July 11. Everyone knew the score at that stage and a quick decision was a good decision.Not comparable to when a City falls, and it isn’t long enough to show how time impacts on us all.. I did find it an emotional experience all the same and glad it was made.

Seeing $5m of scarce NZ On Air money being funnelled into one quite inappropriate project was too much for me... I couldn't bring myself to watch it. Do we really need an overpriced Auckland drama to tell the ChCh story?

I would urge everyone to take a look at Gerard Smyth's powerful, low budget doco "When A City Falls". It's raw and it's real. For me, it's easily the best film that's been made about the Christchurch quakes... it had me in tears.

I admire 'When A City Falls' but it is a bit misdirected to compare it directly with 'Hope and Wire'. The former is a documentary in content, style and intent; the latter is docu-drama, which engages with notions of memory, reconstruction, perspective and dramatisation. You need to place it within the work of Gaylene (such as Home By Christmas) and other film-makers who deliberately re-work conventions of veracity, memory and authentication.

I can't even watch the ads for it. But then, I can't stand any sort of ceremonial thing to do with the earthquakes now. I've started taking leave for the 22nd & hiding in bed all day, because I get irrationally angry at the flowers in the traffic cones. If I go outside, I'll end up punching a busker or something. And that's my birthday. Do you know what it feels like to not want to celebrate your birthday ever again? I'm there.

Knowing that it's meant for people in other areas of the country makes me feel a little better, but overall, I'd rather not know this thing exists at all.

I think (as I tweeted last night) there are inherent problems in dramatising a disaster. Drama is usually about the characters, and the consequences of their actions and choices. In this case, the characters are acted upon by nature. Whatever struggles they might have with each other will seem petty and melodramatic because of the context. The disaster overshadows everything.

I don’t mind if a drama doesn’t show my experience, particularly. But the experience of living through the earthquakes was a shared experience. Although our circumstances were various, all Chch people suddenly had so much in common. To other Chch people, we never needed to explain. That community was important because the horror and the strangeness were beyond words.

When we did talk to each other, we talked about the necessities: damage to our houses, closed roads and businesses, food, water, toilets. I remember going to a party where the conversation was all about toilets: how deep is your long drop, how are you covering it, chemical toilet vs portaloo, should one walk several blocks to a portaloo or is it OK to pee in the garden. For hours, we had this conversation.

I think Hope and Wire is compassionate and the makers clearly took a close interest in the situation of Chch people. But it feels like what it is, a script written by people who weren’t there.One big thing that was missing for me was the sense of the aftershocks just rolling on and on, every few minutes, many times an hour, in the early days and weeks. If you weren’t there, this must be hard to imagine. The peculiar mental state we were in: every activity, every thought, constantly interrupted. The mixture of weariness and dread.

The Merivale lady has a line about the upward force being 2-G, and how it made everything weigh twice as much. Anyone who was there would remember that the opposite was true: we were lifted, as if we weighed half as much, and then dropped back down. That upward movement is something I’ll never forget.

Do we really need an overpriced Auckland drama to tell the ChCh story?

Hear that noise? It’s everyone who’s ever worked in television in New Zealand ever laughing at the idea that local television drama is “overpriced”. For comparative purposes, the budget for six hours of Top of the Lake was over $15 million.

Considering I'm the house Tory around here, I know I should be bashing New Zealand on Air at every opportunity but I can't. For one, I don't have to like every show that gets funding to think it's incredibly important we don't leave local drama entirely to the tender mercies of the market. And nor am I inclined to apologize for the idea that people who work in the industry should actually be paid decently. If we can't be arsed doing that, then don't bother sneering at those who go to Australia (and England and the US) to work and make a decent living and don't come back.

the latter is docu-drama, which engages with notions of memory, reconstruction, perspective and dramatisation.

Quite a few people seem to be confusing the intentions of Hope and Wire. It’s not a documentary in any sense – I wouldn’t call it docu-drama, as I’m pretty sure none of the main characters are directly based on any real person (unlike, say, Bread and Roses.)It’s a drama, a fiction, and it’s purely on those terms it will succeed or fail. (Yes, it’s set at the time and looks at the effects of real events, but it’s no more a docu-drama about the Chch quakes than Saving Private Ryan was a docu-drama about D-day.) When a City Falls is in a league of its own. Perhaps less than the quakes themselves, it really captured some of the feeling of the days and weeks after – everyone speaking softly to each other, a palpable gentleness; along with numbness, boredom, apprehension and exhaustion. Getting by and making do without basic services and amenities. And struggling to find a new balance in a changed and still-changing world. It was raw.[And sad to hear that as well, Alice. I have another friend who shares your birthday, and a daughter who just scraped in the day before. Unforgettable, not in a good way :(]